Building onto the system

The Houston Independent School District went live in September with Microsoft

Corp. SQL Server 6.5, which was the latest version of the database available

at the time. As the database grew over the first two to three months, and

more and more people were accessing the system, HISD experienced poor response

time and system locks, said Daryl Ann Borel, HISD assistant superintendent

for technology and information systems.

In January 1999, officials decided to upgrade to the newly available

SQL Server 7.0.

"The upgrade was completed in early March and was extremely successful,''

Borel said. "Response time improved 300 percent, the average wait time was

reduced 876 percent, and the system locks declined to zero." SQL Server

7.0 provides SAP's ERP package with a solid database foundation by increasing

system availability and response time and economizing database size, Borel

said. SQL Server's efficient architecture shrank the previously 45G database

to 30G, saving disk space and increasing performance.

"SQL Server's robust processing capabilities cut data processing time

considerably, and system administration is now simpler than ever," she said.

"Batch and background processing, which previously took three to four hours,

now takes less than 30 minutes to complete. The time needed to generate

reports was cut from a maximum of one hour to less than 15 minutes."